The asteroid responsible for killing off the dinosaurs remains at large after scientists made a miscalculation and blamed the wrong one.
Space experts had thought the giant asteroid Baptistina was to blame for the extinction of the species - a view which has been widely held since 2007.
They worked out it crashed into another asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter some 160million years ago sending giant fragments as large as mountains flying, including one which hit Earth millions of years later.
Scientists are still confident a giant meteor about six miles wide did wipe out the dinosaurs - but they are no longer pointing the finger at Baptistina.
They came to the new conclusion following observations made from Nasa's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission - which uses infrared to determine the age of objects in space - and said the timings did not add up.
A space telescope surveyed the entire sky twice in infrared light from January 2010 to February 2011 and catalogued more than 157,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and more than 33,000 new space rocks.
Mystery: Scientists said Baptistina was off the hook after surveying the sky using infrared to determine the age of objects in space and said the timings did not add up
They established that the Baptistina asteroid broke up closer to 80million years ago - not 160million years ago as first thought.
This means the fragments had only 15million years to reach Earth to wipe out the dinosaurs.
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